Yesterday on my various social networking sites (as I’m sure everyone is painfully aware) I blogged about being in a new gallery, and deciding to experiment a bit with one of my pieces.

I decided, since I had a few old frames left over from another project, that the best thing to do would be to destroy the ever-loving hell out of one of them. Story of my life…

Ultimately, I chose to work over a frame based on a piece of art I did this spring called “Infection”, which looks something like this:

infection

Instead of just a standard frame, I decided to try and have fun with it.  To that end, I took one of those old frames and beat the crap out of it.

Now, that actually is simplifying the process just a bit.  But I did get to use the phrase “beat the crap out of it”, so I still consider that a win.

I sanded a few choice spots on the frame, somewhat randomly.  They are in a rough path from the top of the frame to the bottom, but not a line per se.  After a little sanding, I took my Dremel tool and, using various tips, “ate away” at the frame.

After getting rid of the sawdust, I added a few colors of ink and (heavily) watered down acrylics to the raw wood areas, giving it, frankly, an awful, infected look.  Which, unlike waking up Saturday morning after a night of drinking, is what I actually wanted.

I then took a black mat and tore the top black layers up a bit. I used a scratchboard tool that is, more or less, a bunch of random sharp wires, and roughed up the mat in spots to match the frame. Again, I added ink and acrylic.

I did also fool around with the Dremel and the glass, and I think with some practice it could work, but it was becoming a bit too “obvious” so I abandoned that. Maybe with the proper tools, or an acid on the glass, the effect might work better.

So here, below, is the final product.  I took a few pictures from different angles, and as always let me know what you think. I’m trying to decide what the best price to sell something like this would be too, especially since it’s a “one of a kind” piece.

infection frame 1

infection frame 2

infection frame 4

infection frame 3

Sometimes, I shudder to post new ideas or new techniques that I try. I never know if they really work out, if they are ok but just need work, or if they are so awful that the sun will shrivel up and we’ll all die.

But, I also think that as an artist I always need to push ahead, to grow and to get better at what I do.  Posting the results on my website, while giving the distinct possibility that some new editor or fan might run away screaming, also forces me to learn and to adapt much more quickly.  I can’t hide behind the flaws, they are there for the whole world to see.

I’ve also, over the years, read plenty from other artists (on the web, in magazines and books, and so on). Those I’ve learned the most from are the artists who are willing to put their art out for the world to see, warts and all.  You can see their progress from piece to piece, and see how they developed as an artist.

You also see that they are human.  Often, when I see the final art by another artist, I tend to skip the part where they had to learn their techniques.  I see the final product, but when I get to read about their techniques, their process, and especially where they’ve had to learn from a mistake I learn so much more from them.

In that spirit, below is my very first acrylic piece. Usually I’m a digital artist (for many reasons), but I always like trying different media and techniques.  Now that I have a real office/studio, I have the physical space to try things out.

Here, finally, is my very first acrylic piece. I call it, The Thing That Crawled. No giggling allowed.  Though, I guess I wouldn’t hear it anyway.

Or would I….

The Thing That Crawled

Awhile back (and by “awhile back” I mean “over a year ago”) I wrote an art blog of Frederic Edwin Church’s beautiful painting called The Icebergs (check out the blog here… I”ll wait.)

I won’t bore you with the specs again (I’ll be boring you with other ways now), but seeing it in person I realized what the specs actually mean.

The Icebergs, it turns out, is a really, really big painting.

Not the largest I’ve seen for sure (a Rembrandt holds that record), but nevertheless this is a very large painting.  That’s something that you don’t get from seeing it on the internet or in a book: the sheer size of some of these paintings.

Seeing it in person, and it being such a large painting, you really get the sense that someone painted this.  I mean, of course someone painted it. But you begin to drop the idea that these are all just pictures in a book, that someone put their love, their passion and their faith into their work.

For one, you can see where the individual strokes are, and also the age of a work when you look at it in person.  You can see the cracks in the paint, and wonder if they will ever separate further:

Most books and sites aren’t going to show you levels of detail like this, and when you see the cracks you start to understand that this wasn’t just painted yesterday.  You see that this was painted (from the time of this posting) nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

You can also see Church’s styles and techniques vary even in the same painting. Where there is intricate detail in the remnants of the ship, including the twisted wood fibers and canvas:

In other areas his technique is very loose, very fast, and almost playful:

He’s also able to add close-up details, such as this band of blue in the ice:

While he still offers the distant icebergs:

Between the two, he builds fantastic drama in the ice, in the ship, and in the overall piece.  He marries the subtle with the overt, the bright with the dark, and the traditional with the unusual, brilliantly.

My favorite part of all is the ice cave structure and the rocks. There is a mystery here for us to consume, and Church’s use of color leads us into it. Up close, in real life, you can see Church’s individual strokes, some strict and some loose, that give us a beautiful, yet almost ominous scene:

But most of all, I take from my visit one single, important thing as an artist.  One hundred and fifty years after it was painted, an artist like me can stand in front of this massive piece of art and see this:

One hundred and fifty years later someone stands in front of Church’s art, and his name lives on with it.

As an artist, I can’t do much better than people standing in front of my art, appreciating it, long after I’m gone. Then turning around and sharing my work, and my name, with the world.

It’s not often that I have more than one image a week, but it really has been a terrible day.  So, I decided to put all that anger and frustration into my artwork, and see if I can’t work out some issues.

I think it worked, my mood has lightened a bit.  It doesn’t change any plans now in motion, but now I can at least smile when I look at the computer.

This piece came completely from my head while I was sitting here, it’s not one I actually planned. But it did come out like I saw it in my head, which may be good and bad. It also wasn’t originally named what it is, but when an American Head Charge song came on I knew it was the perfect title.

It’s called, A Violent Reaction.

After a bit of time, I’ve finally created a new art piece.  My goal is to have a new one each month, and I’m just squeaking this one in under the wire.

It’s an idea that I’ve had for awhile, though it’s really gone through several variations.  This one has far more color that the original did, and I was really liking the silhouette of the girl more than the full image of her.  I thought it added a little more creepiness to it, a little more mystery.

I threw in a couple of close ups as well below, since the web’s not all that great for detail sometimes.

I call this one, Eternity in the Old North Hall.

I’ve made a conscious effort to sketch every day, even if it’s something small, in the last two weeks.  I now have 13 sketches up on my new Flickr page, and I find it interesting to look back and already see the diversity of what I’m sketching.

I decided when I started sketching this set that I just wanted to let the pencil run free, and not try to reign it in. I have other works of art and projects in motion that require specific things, but with these sketches I just wanted to let my imagination take me on the ride.

So far, it really has been a very diverse set of sketches.  From humor to horror, specific ideas to loose lines, it’s been fun to play.  I think as an artist that’s important, especially when you do have clients and projects.  It’s easy to forget why you are an artist, and that you need your own time and your own imagination to play with.

Go check out the Flickr page, and by all means let me know what you think.  Even on the disturbing ones.

I’m the first to admit, VisionCon coming up (go visit their site here!) is the first convention where I’ll actually be a guest.  That means for once I’ll need to be in the art show and be selling stuff.  I’m currently trying to decide what prints I want in the art show, what prints I should make and sell, selling postcards and bookmarks, and so on.

I’m also deciding what I should bring for my own self-promotion.  I’ll probably at least bring business cards and mini-cards, but talking online today with Cullen Bunn I also considered “monster cards’.

Monster cards were big in the 60′s-80′s especially.  They were horror-related cards, either straight horror or often with some amount of humor to them.  I though that would be a pretty good thing to bring, and here are a couple of initial ideas. Obviously, I have to throw my smart-ass nature in too.

Comments welcome, and needed!

Monster Cards

I’ve had the pleasure of doing a couple of pieces of art for stories by author Sam Anderson (www.samscrap.com) this last year, for his new collection “Postcards from Purgatory”.  The book features some great stories, and I was happy to do art for the book.

If you check out my grayscale art page (I’ll wait….), you’ll see an image of a man falling.  I did that art, for Sam’s story “to die dreaming”, from Dark Animus #5 (quite a few years ago). It will be reprinted (with the story of course) in Sam’s new book, along with another new image of one of his other great stories.

After a couple of setbacks (including a new publisher), Sam’s book will be coming out soon. Keep checking his website (above) for more information, and definitely pick it up.

I created one other image that didn’t quite make it into the book (not enough room), and that one is below.  It’s based on a fun story called, “If Mama Ain’t Happy”, and I pretty much refer to it by the same name so that’s now it’s official title.

The original version was grayscale, but through the Magic of Technology™ (aka, Photoshop), I gave it some more texture and color. As always, let me know what you think, either here or my various Twitters, Facebooks and emails.

I’m not sure if I want to call this new piece a full piece of art or just a color sketch, but it apparently is the mood I’m in tonight.  Dark and depressing (and possibly a bit creepy I guess) seems to rule tonight, but I think this is one of those “art imitating life” moments.

It’s been a long week, and, as I am not one to herald the holidays, I feel this sort of thing has only just begun. I suppose at best I’ll at least get some dark art out of it.

This one I call “the night of the innocents“, and there’s a better close-up at the end.

night of the innocents

I’ve been trying to get back into art as strongly as I can, especially with my being a guest at VisionCon in January.  It’s been tough, between family life, day job, being out of town for said job, and so on.  But I managed to squeeze in some time this afternoon, and I created an image that’s been stuck in my head for a very long time.

When I was in college, I had a fantastic professor of Asian literature, named Dr. Langois. He mentioned a haiku once that affected him more than any other he’d read, and the visual has been in my head all these years.  I’m not going to mention what it was, since I think that will influence the art, but feel free to ask me on my Twitter or Facebook feeds and I can tell which it is.

I call it “lost forgotten”, and I’ve included some close-ups below as well.  I may try and add it to a store to sell prints too, if anyone’s interested. If you want a larger version, click here.